This was announced today by the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Belarus, Lieutenant-General Viktor Khrenin. He also said that the decision was made by the Presidents of Belarus and Russia “in connection with the increase in military activity near the external borders of the Union State and the aggravation of the situation in Donbas,” as you can read in the telegram channel of the Belarusian Defense Ministry.

Viktor Khrenin, photo: Ministry of Defense of Belarus

The official version of the reasons for continuing from is that they are going to “thoroughly work out the stages of defense”, which allegedly “were not covered with such a degree of detail” in the previous period.

Also you may have noticed that we used the word “drills”, while Khrenin uses “readiness check”. We already heard this wording a little earlier from Alexander Volfovich, Secretary of State of the Security Council of Belarus. He then said that the “drills” were completed, but the “check” could continue.

But it is worthwhile to understand that this is all word games, because nothing prevents them from announcing the next “drills as part of the “check”. And there are reasons to believe that this will be the case – because at the moment this “test” does not have an end date that Khrenin would name (and which is usually stated within the framework of international agreements like the Vienna Document).

photo from joint Russian-Belarusian exercises, Belta

We don’t even talk about the irony of the fact that Russia and Belarus first themselves increased military activity on the border and aggravated the situation in Donbass, and then they themselves use it now to continue this “check”.

We continue to monitor Russian troops’ movement on Ukraine’s border. Should you have any information or evidence of Russian troops or equipment movement, or any other information you want to share with us, please send it to us via email [email protected] or text us on social media.